Chinese hackers who breached Microsoft’s email platform this year have successfully stolen tens of thousands of emails from US State Department accounts, according to a Senate staffer briefed by State Department IT officials. The breach involved the theft of 60,000 emails from 10 State Department accounts, with nine of the victims focusing on East Asia and the Pacific and one on Europe.
The cyberattack was part of a broader campaign where Chinese state-linked hackers gained access to email accounts at around 25 organizations, including the US Commerce and State Departments, beginning in May. The extent of the breach remains unclear, but US officials have accused China of being behind the attacks, further straining US-China relations.
The compromised State Department accounts primarily belonged to individuals working on Indo-Pacific diplomacy efforts. The hackers also obtained a list containing all of the department’s emails during the breach.
This incident has raised concerns about Microsoft’s role in providing IT services to the US government. The State Department is taking measures to enhance its cybersecurity, including transitioning to “hybrid” environments with multiple vendor companies and implementing multi-factor authentication.
The hackers reportedly gained access to the State Department’s email accounts by compromising a Microsoft engineer’s device. Microsoft has faced criticism over its security practices in the wake of these breaches, with the hacking group responsible, known as Storm-0558, targeting webmail accounts running on Microsoft’s Outlook service.
Senator Eric Schmitt expressed the need to strengthen defenses against cyberattacks and intrusions and called for a reevaluation of the federal government’s reliance on a single vendor. Microsoft did not immediately comment on the Senate briefing, and the State Department did not respond to requests for comment at the time of the report.
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